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For CTAHR Faculty & Staff
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CTAHR College-Wide Conference: Building A Shared Vision

Improving the Research/Extension/Instruction Linkage
Convenor: Halina Zaleski

Recorder: Linda Cox

Issue: Improving the research/extension/instructional linkage

Problem definition:
  • Research is driven by department/national/international agenda and extension is driven at the county level
  • Misunderstanding and/or lack of communication between scientists and extension faculty
  • Specialists are the link between county faculty and researchers, but CTAHRR does not have specialists in each subject matter area
  • Researchers need to determine if they have enough data/information to community stakeholders
  • Problems are identified by those external to CTAHR and then we respond
  • Lack of problem oriented research
  • Researchers tackle problems they have the expertise to handle and get funded to work on
  • Lack of communication with no mechanism to address immediate problems and a mismatch of resources
  • Friction between extension and research with the extension agent playing an important role
  • Stakeholder may not be able to communicate with extension
  • Clients may have changed so they are not the traditional farmers any more
  • Our clients are not just HI residents, but are all over the world
  • Drop the R, E idea and focus on issue identification and strategy development for each issue

Highest Hopes:

  • Funding is ample
  • Funding must be directed to a team approach to address relevant problems/issues
  • Research questions become scientifically interesting internationally and locally relevant/applicable
  • Balance of basic and applied research
  • Strategic research, rather than basic research, is undertaken
  • How can we connect with each other
  • More flexible team players with incentives
  • Agents have educational programs and use years of research done by many researchers
  • Getting funding quickly is a barrier between researchers and extension
  • Getting facilities that will allow us to do what needs to be done
  • Need slush fund for brush fires/seed projects

Strategies for linking more better:

  • Industry analysis
  • Researchers go out in the field with extension faculty
  • Problem based multi-disciplinary teams
  • Slush fund for brush fires
  • Outcome based funding
  • Three types of pubs generated from each project- journal articles, extension publication, lay articles for the general public
  • Extension faculty should attend scientific presentations
  • Distance diagnostics
  • Sales policy for station sales
  • Mechanism to deal with client needs where research may not be needed
  • Expand ADSC to be more full service including vet services
  • Central service facility to provide high quality services that are commonly needed across CTAHR
  • Let researchers use funds to “buy” the services they need

Actions

  • Provide travel funds for travel for everyone to “visit” each other and talk story $5,000 (C)
  • List of techs’.Abilities and engage techs in the research process (C)
  • More collaborative and less hrarchical (H)
  • Reward for collaboration (H)
  • Loan on indirect return (C)
  • Slush fund $50,000 (C-B)
  • Business plan/feasibilty study ADSC/Central Services (B)
  • Find appropriate collaborators (H)
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FOLLOW UP
ACTIONS

Provide travel funds for everyone to visit and talk story
Conversation workshops are open to all CTAHR faculty and staff to provide an opportunity for everyone to talk. 249 CTAHR employees and 55 stakeholders have attended. NREM held a departmental meeting on the Big Island on March 28, 2003. HFNAS has purchased a Polycom to hold meetings among department members in Manoa and other locations in the State. Polycoms should be installed at all major extension offices by December 2004. Extension conference is planned for November, 2003.

List of agricultural technicians skills and engage the technicians in the research.
Each county administrator will be asked to detail the skills of the agricultural technicians working in their county and provide a brief plan on how they engage the agricultural technicians in research.

More collaborative and less hierarchical
CSREES Integrated Extension and Research projects have been established that should have at least .15 FTE of time commitment from research and a .15 FTE time commitment from extension. A faculty-approved plan on overhead return will be developed for each unit. A GA has been provided for the inter-departmental Food Science Graduate program. Associate Deans work closely with appropriate CTAHR Faculty Senate Committees. Roles of counties and departments have been clarified.

Reward for collaboration
ORS forms will list all PIs from different units and Colleges. Cathy Chan-Halbrendt and Barry Brennan will facilitate the process of research-extension priority development by research and extension faculty. A resource allocation mechanism to encourage collaboration will be considered.

Loan on indirect return and *Slush Fund of $50,000
Cathy and Barry are handling this on a case-by-case basis. Examples of support over the past year include: development of the East Timor Proposal; NSF proposal matching funds; international travel for faculty, ASCOP/ACOP Leadership training; support patent application; Innovative Solutions; and support scientific association conference exhibit display.

Business plan/Feasibility study ADSC/Central Services
No progress to report.

Find appropriate collaborators
Brian Turano, grant specialist, has been hired to assist in finding funding resources for faculty.
Return to Burning Issue Report List
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Last updated on 6/4/2003